Holden’s Future Still Safe

About two weeks ago we reported that GM America had pressed pause on their rear wheel drive architecture (spearheaded by Holden Australia), the reason being proposed tougher emission laws requiring American manufacturers to learn a few lessons from the Japanese and Europeans and improve fuel efficiency by 4% every year, with an end target of 6.9L/100km.

However GM Holden chief Denny Mooney has confirmed that there will be no change of plans (yet) for Holden’s rear wheel drive platform.

“We’re doing a lot of engineering work here on all of the future rear-wheel drive alternatives, and I can tell you that we have not changed our work one bit. From an execution standpoint, with what our engineers are working on – that is, executing programs that are currently in the plan – we’re still doing what we were doing.” Mr Mooney said.

From that statement it seems that Holden are waiting to see if the proposed american emission laws will actually pass the senate in the states. If they do, it will be a different story.

“That doesn’t mean that in a couple of months, as we make decisions or as we see what is going to happen in some of these different areas in the world relative to potential legislation requirements, that some of what we’re working on today may change.” Mr Mooney said.

It seems that the “bigger is better” attitude is starting to slowly change in the states. With the Japanese working hard on Hybrid and other technologies, GM is reviewing its entire porfolio and coming up with contingency plans amid the growing fear of Global Warming and consumer awareness.

Mr Mooney was confident that despite a possible change in plans, there will always be work for the GM engineers in Australia.

It does feel that Holden is playing a game of “wait and see” as oppose to simply realizing that inevitably, tougher emission laws will come into affect, so the sooner plans come into affect the better. Saying that, we reported earlier that Holden has been quietly working on both hybrid and diesel technologies, so perhaps Mr Mooney is keeping the good news as a surprise.